LifeSaver Award Series: Dawn Schmidt, MultiCare Deaconess Hospital (Spokane, Wash.)

Each month, LifeCenter Northwest selects a LifeSaver Award winner. This award honors and recognizes those who demonstrate a commitment to improving donation outcomes and culture through their actions, time and energy.

We are pleased to present this month’s LifeSaver Award to Dawn Schmidt, who is a Radiology Receptionist at MultiCare Deaconess Hospital in Spokane, Wash.

Earlier this year, Deaconess Hospital experienced two organ donation cases in rapid succession. As is often the case, the transplant centers involved in these donation cases needed diagnostic images from the donor hospital’s radiology team placed on discs in order to determine whether organs are acceptable for transplant and which recipient(s) the organs will go to.

Once the first organ donation case at Deaconess reached this point, the radiology team at Deaconess discovered they had unexpectedly lost the ability to burn images to discs. Thinking quickly and understanding the urgency of the situation, Dawn immediately designed a new solution and expedited the process. Dawn sent the diagnostic images to another MultiCare facility in Spokane with disc-burning capacity, and they were able to send the discs to LifeCenter Northwest and the transplant center from there.

Dawn played a major role in ensuring that these images were made available quickly, despite facing significant challenges. As a result, these two donation cases were successful, and seven people received the gift of life. Thanks to Dawn, one heart, two livers and four kidneys were transplanted from these two organ donors.

We are proud to honor Dawn with this LifeSaver Award, which recognizes the creative thinking she demonstrated, going above and beyond in a time of need to ensure organ donation could proceed.